And a lot of people were interested, which got me thinking about Florida.
I’ve mentioned this a few times, but the recently updated benchmark for review volume in 2023 is 10.4 reviews/month for dealers.
If you’re a dealer in Florida receiving an average of 12 reviews a month, it would be easy to think you're in a good spot.
You’d be outperforming the national average, after all.
However, when we segment the data to examine only the 1,004 dealerships in Florida, the benchmark jumps to 23.
And get this - the median response rate in Florida is 96%. Not much room for error.
Herein lies the lesson.
National benchmarks provide some directional markers, but reputation is a local endeavor.
Any dealership’s ability to rank high in local search with great review content, and therefore bring in more customers, is based on how well you stack up against a narrow set of competitors in a limited radius.
Best of luck to the Orlando dealers that have to face off with Toyota of Orlando at over 26,000 reviews.
But again, of the 47 dealerships in the Greater Orlando area, only 31 are “non-luxury.”
Competing against other luxury dealers, Fields BMW of South Orlando is sitting pretty at 5,000 reviews with no reason to be distracted by the hulking Toyota shop down the street.
When reviewing your dealership’s review performance, be specific, and use the Index. You can filter by city, brand, and/or segment (luxury, non-luxury) to get to the competitive set that represents your true competition.
Tip: Scroll down to the bottom of the table window to see the benchmark data for any filtered view you create.
Trivia: Florida is not the highest volume review state in the country. It’s #2. Any guesses? Find the answer at the bottom of this article.
The best way to get state-level benchmarks in the Index is to Group by State and “collapse all” for a quick look at state-level metrics. Go to Index.
